Global Destructive Bombardment
"The world burned for days, and the whole time we had to stay in orbit, watch, and record. 'This,' my instructor said, 'Is the future of war.'" '-Captain William Jenkins, United Solar Armed Forces, 23rd Century' Global Destructive Bombardment (GDB), also known as Termination/Annihilation Bombardment or Total Eradication Bombardment, was a tactic proposed, and later used, by the United Sol Coalition's High Command in 2163 as a solution to any further extraterrestrial invasions by the Deinosects. It involves the use of nuclear, plasma, and conventional weapons to first eliminate known Deinosect hives from the face of a planet, then utterly annihilate any remaining individuals on the planet, and finally rid the atmosphere of any remaining pathogens in order to sterilize he planet of any and all infection. The severe measure was originally proposed as a solution to Terra, which had been totally consumed by the Deinosects 13 years before, but was dismissed as such attacks were banned on human-inhabited worlds, especially the homeworld of humanity. The policy of killing all life on a planet as a way of stemming a possible Deinosect outbreak was resurrected by HIGHCOM some 340 years later after the Deinosects escaped Earth with their organic ships and left for the human populated Sargas Sector. The USC Expeditionary Force was green lighted to use "...any and all means necessary to destroy the Deinosects and the threat they pose to the United Sol Coalition and humanity as a whole." Their use of the highly controversial tactic helped to turn Sargasian inhabitants against them. Operation The deployment of weapons capable of causing irreparable damage to a planet en masse was highly problematic for any nation, and gathering the required amount of munitions could easily prove costly. To this end, a GDB was not as broad as it may sound; instead of soaking an object in high-impact ammunition, each planet's most vulnerable spots were assessed for maximum impact with the lowest materials. Munitions (most often nuclear weapons or super rail guns, though sometimes plasma) would be fired for maximum effect at targets that could cause environmental stability to a planet and produce immediate (within a week) or near immediate (within a couple months) results. Destroying or damaging the most vital parts of a planet's global environment would prove catastrophic, but there were other ways to accomplish this in less direct methods. One such way to inadvertently rend an object uninhabitable was through a process similar (or sometimes precisely) to that of nuclear winter. Particulates from the massive explosions could blot out the object's star, causing an ice age that could make any life there extremely harsh. Alternatively, the atmosphere could be burned away in the case of plasma weaponry, or the ice caps could be melted with the same technology. With specialized weapons, the temperature of a world could be increased by sometimes dozens of degrees, causing widespread damage, or GDB could be achieved through one of many other possible methods. These varied approaches meant that there was no one standard way for a GDB to be carried out. All that was required was that the effects take place in the short term and produce the following results: * Elimination of most enemies through lack of supplies, inability to fight, etc. * (Practically) Irreperable damage to the planet and its biosphere. Nonetheless, even when the minimal amount of resources were used, GDBs were still a costly and usually inefficient strategy. A severe detriment to morale amongst one's own people (GDBs were often last ditch options) and a cause for enemies to rally behind, as well as the loss of a planet, meant that the benefits rarely outweighed the costs. Furthermore the logistics of getting the resources and ships necessary to actually accomplish such an objective could take weeks or months. Category:Military Tactic Category:United Sol Coalition Category:Orbital Bombardment Category:Aerospace Navy